The importance of work-life balance

People who have never experienced how the working class man or woman lives should keep their opinions to themselves. If they’ve grown up privileged and if they’re enjoying inherited money, it’s their duty to not share their opinions about how other people live or to judge them for it. This might seem simple enough but you’d be surprised at how many Marie Antoinettes are out there and they speak without thinking or think they can speak their minds because of what or who they are.

Such people, who have a voice, have a special duty to be mindful of their words or, at the very least, be mindful of how they deliver their opinion. The well-known saying, ‘If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all’ should be foremost in their minds. Unfortunately many can be insulting or judgemental and often come across as arrogant.

Martha Stewart is a household name across most of the world. For years I used to watch her daily show that was aired in the UAE. I enjoyed her arts and crafts segments, her recipes and her gardening tips. But there was something about her that gave me an unsettling feeling. I remember that she served a short prison sentence in the early 2000s for insider trading but that wasn’t what was unsettling about her. I remember that it was her tongue. Some people might argue that she spoke her mind and wasn’t hurting anyone.

But I do beg to differ. Words matter especially if they come from someone of her stature. She’s a household name with a finger in every arts and crafts pie and her response to a recent question was not only impolite but very insulting. She was asked how she balanced her work and her life. She said there was no such thing. She said you can’t have it because it doesn’t exist.

Now people might agree that it doesn’t exist but there will be as many people who might argue to the contrary. But my concern is not whether Stewart was right or wrong about the concept but how she peppered her words with insults. She called those who sought a work-life balance thick skulled and boring.

She called France ‘not a very thriving country and made references to ‘their stupid... you know, off for August, blah blah blah’. She also implied that Americans don’t want to go back to work, which is probably the furthest from the truth, and that the 3 days at the office and 2 days remote doesn’t work and that it’s nonsense and ineffective.

I feel she’s totally wrong when it comes to thinking that you need to be at the office to get anything done. I know plenty of people, and I’m sure many do, who are running businesses from home and plenty of employees who work from home and they get more done at home than they would if they spent the entire day at the office.

There’s nothing wrong with having an opinion because opinions aren’t fact. However, if you’re someone people pay attention to when you speak, in other words, you’re an influencer, then what you say carries weight. However, that weight might be diluted when you insult people or nations and when you pepper your words with obscene language. The moment you do that, nothing you say matters even if what you say matters.

This is not being blunt or calling a spade a spade. It’s having a biased view of how other people live and behave compared to you, which is likely to be the complete opposite.

But some people can’t help being obnoxious when they express their opinion. It’s sad that someone like Stewart would think that those who seek not to spend their entire lives working would also want a life were 'thick skulled'.

She seems to have forgotten the maxim that you work to live and not live to work. But she has her own business and she’s the ultimate boss of herself so it stands to reason that she would want to work the way she works. It’s not the case with other people, however.